


the moderately perilous game

by alderations



Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [28]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Mechtober, Other, Whumptober 2020, get a taste of their own medicine, mostly funny banter tho, spooky disappearances, the mechanisms are hunted for sport
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27258589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: “No sign of her?” Raphaella asks, hands on her hips. “Not even a scorched tree branch or something?”“Nothing,” Tim replies. “I’ve scanned the area a half-dozen times, and if my eyes can’t pick up anything, there’s nothing to see.”Jonny rolls his eyes. “You have a lot of confidence in those eyes, given that we’re the ones who put them in your dumb skull.”(Whumptober Day 28: hunting season)
Relationships: Raphaella la Cognizi/Ashes O'Reilly, The Mechanisms Ensemble & The Mechanisms Ensemble
Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950916
Comments: 17
Kudos: 97
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	the moderately perilous game

Ashes is laughing at some dumb joke when they get back to the clearing where the Aurora was parked and find, instead, an empty field. They don’t panic immediately; the ghost of a smile stays on their face, even as Nastya starts to hyperventilate next to them and Tim’s hand clenches around the handle of his gun. There are dozens of possibilities—maybe they forgot where they left the Aurora, or she decided to go for a joyride on her own, or they accidentally left Brian on board again and he—no, Brian’s on the other side of Nastya, comforting her with a hand on her shoulder. Huh.

The Mechanisms spend the next few hours wandering between the trees and shouting for Aurora, to no avail. They’ve barely been on this planet for a day, since it turned out to be remarkably boring after a bit of routine violence, but the longer they go without finding the ship, the more desperate they all become to get  _ off  _ this stupid rock before anything else goes wrong.

Once the twin moons rise over the trees, they reconvene in the original clearing to debate what to do next. They  _ are  _ out in the middle of the woods, after all, and they’ve already thoroughly ostracized themselves from any interpersonal connections on this planet whatsoever. “No sign of her?” Raphaella asks, hands on her hips. “Not even a scorched tree branch or something?”

“Nothing,” Tim replies. “I’ve scanned the area a half-dozen times, and if my eyes can’t pick up anything, there’s nothing to see.”

Jonny rolls his eyes. “You have a  _ lot  _ of confidence in those eyes, given that we’re the ones who put them in your dumb skull.”

As they quickly dissolve into a half-assed wrestling match, Ashes does a quick headcount and comes up with… eight, including themself. They count again. Only then do they begin to actually pay attention to who they’re counting. “Guys,” they say, raising their voice to be heard over the crew’s squabbling. “Where’s Nastya?”

Jonny freezes, dropping Tim from a headlock. “What do you  _ mean,  _ where’s Nastya?”

“I mean she’s not here.”

Before he even speaks, Ashes can hear Brian’s cooling fans kick into overdrive as he stares around the clearing. “She was just with me,” he reasons. “Like, five minutes ago. I—I thought she was right behind me, and then…”

“Well, then, let’s  _ look  _ for her,” Jonny insists. “Which direction did you come from?”

They’re lucky that Brian has a compass built into his chest, because they’re all struggling to keep themselves oriented on a strange planet after dark. Still, they launch into another round of searching, this time calling out for Nastya, until the night fades back into dawn and they’re left without a single blue hair or drop of silver blood.

Then Ashes hears the Toy Soldier scream, high and warbling between the trees.

They’ve been searching with Jonny, and they shoot him a concerned look, noticing how his eyes go wide between his branching eyeliner. “Do you think…?”

“I think someone’s hunting us down,” Jonny confirms. His face twists into a cruel grin. “This should be  _ fun.” _

Of course, Jonny is the next one to go missing. After combing the forest for a bit longer, the Mechanisms join forces again and head back into town in hopes of finding Nastya or the Toy Soldier, though they’ve all come to similar conclusions at this point. Ashes is busy trying to bribe a shop owner out of a delightfully-crafted revolver when Brian tugs on their elbow, pulling them away from the store. “Can it wait?” they hiss, only growing more irritated when Brian’s lip wobbles. The man  _ really  _ needs to work on his poker face.

“It’s—Jonny’s gone.”

Ashes frowns. “What do you mean,  _ gone?” _

“I mean he—I was right next to him, same as with Nastya, and then something grabbed him by the ankle and he—the—there was this alley next to us and by the time I caught up he was  _ gone,”  _ Brian rambles, eyes wide and desperate.

“Well, then, that’s something else to know about our enemy,” Ashes argues. “Stay away from dark alleyways.”

No one is surprised when the locals run them back out of town again. They  _ could  _ easily just murder enough people to be left alone, but it’s a surprisingly well-populated town, and it’s just not worth the effort. So they head back into the forest, searching for somewhere relatively calm and well-lit to regroup and debate their next move.

“At least this forest is interesting,” Ivy muses.

Tim, walking just ahead of her, rolls his eyes. “Interesting  _ how?  _ It’s just the same trees over and over again.”

“Same trees, sure, but I’ve counted eighty-nine distinct types of lichen since we’ve been here, and—oh, wait, what’s this?”

They’re all used to Ivy wandering off to catalog some new information, but Ashes stops after only a few paces and turns around in time to watch Ivy’s brilliant hair disappear between the trees.

“Ivy?” they call, walking back toward where she was standing moments before, but they already know they’re too late.

“Could be bears,” Marius suggests. “Lots of forests have ‘em. Like that Hereward bloke? Maybe it’s just really strong bears.”

Ashes shrugs. “Bears aren’t  _ that  _ fast, though. To shut Jonny or Ivy up that fast? You’ve gotta be quicker than a bear.”

They’re not particularly worried about their disappearing crewmates, given how often they all fuck off into the cosmos of their own accord anyway. On the other hand, being away from the Aurora is making everyone antsy. Ashes, for their part, would really like to get back to collecting ‘taxes’ from their crew and having their top-secret afternoon tea with Aurora herself.

Caught up in reminiscence, they glance up at the sky, only to look down in time to see a pair of massive claws grab Tim and Marius both around the throat. They’re gone before Ashes can even open their mouth to warn them, though they do get a decent look at the way the claws glint in the moonlight, almost like metal.

While none of the Mechanisms need sleep, they like to take naps most of the time. This, of course, goes by the wayside when being hunted by some unseen force in an unfamiliar forest.

So when Raphaella and Ashes find Brian hunched unconscious over the campfire, they’re concerned, to say the least. He’s a  _ robot,  _ after all, so why should he need sleep? Then his eyes flicker open, and they both sit back, pretending they hadn’t been gawking at him moments before. “Ah,” he says.

“Ah?” asks Ashes.

Brian just offers them a cryptic grin. “I know what’s going on here.”

“Care to elaborate?”

He opens his mouth, only to be cut off by what looks like a massive vine wrapping around his head and covering his mouth. Then he’s whisked away, just like the others, and Raphaella and Ashes are left alone.

If they weren’t immortal, this situation would be terrifying. As it is, they’ve only been on this planet for a few days, and every one of them has lived through far worse situations for much longer periods of time. So, all things considered, this feels like a weird vacation from the rest of the crew.

Ashes reluctantly puts out the campfire once the sun comes up, just in case that’s helping whatever’s out there find them. Before they can mope about it too much, Raphaella sits down next to them on the leaf-strewn ground and wraps a wing around their shoulders. “We can light another one once we move somewhere else,” she suggests.

“This was a  _ good  _ one, though,” Ashes mumbles.

Raphaella just laughs and nuzzles their shoulder, watching them patiently until they turn their head to kiss her on the nose. “All your fires are good. Who would you be, if not the Lighter of Incredible Fires?”

“You don’t know that! There was this one time, when I was eight—”

They’re cut off mid-sentence by what looks like, for all intents and purposes, a tractor beam. Ashes has been on plenty of spaceships in their immense life, but none that could actually suck them up into the ship with some weird light and spooky noises alone. So when they start floating, still hand-in-hand with Raphaella, they struggle to keep themself calm.

Less than thirty seconds later, they float up through the underbelly of the Aurora, and are deposited unceremoniously on the common room sofa.

“Wait—what? What the  _ fuck,  _ Aurora?” Ashes demands, sitting up and staring at the ceiling. “Where have you been?!”

On either side of them, Brian and Tim sit, nursing half-healed injuries from their apparent kidnappings. “I tried to tell you,” says Brian.

“Tell me  _ what?”  _ Ashes looks around, first at Brian and then the rest of the crew—they’re all here. Even Nastya, laying on the floor with her hair spread out around her head and one hand petting the carpet as if it’s Aurora’s hair, which is a real possibility that Ashes refuses to consider. “Wait, you—that—that was  _ you,  _ Aurora?”

The spaceship giggles.

“Oh, fuck  _ off,”  _ Ashes tells her off. They’re already fighting the urge to laugh; it’s been a long few days, but they have to admit that ‘abandoning your crew on a boring planet and then hunting them for sport’ is a fantastic prank.

**Don’t worry, Quartermaster. Next time I will consider letting you in on the fun.**

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry if this makes literally no sense ghka;dfhg I struggled with this prompt. But I thought the concept of Aurora just deciding to fuck around and hunt the Mechs for sport is fucking hilarious, and What She Deserves, and also she would 100% catch Nastya first so she wouldn't get worried, but of course none of the other mechs are smart enough to piece that together.
> 
> if you Did enjoy this nonsense, consider leaving a comment and perhaps I will spare you all emotionally over the next few days. >:3


End file.
